What is recorded here

Half a metre from a stream that feeds a wider river, a broken cross-slab lies in the Coolcashin graveyard, its sandstone edge sharp enough to cut a thumb. Incised lines still trace a border and the beginning of a double curve, perhaps one arm of a Latin cross, while mortar marks on the underside suggest it once stood embedded in a wall before returning to the ground. The fragment is small, but it carries the weight of a medieval church, a buried life and a community that marked death with care.

On a gentle E-facing slope, just below the crest of a hill, in rolling grassland, c. 50m NE of a stream which flows into a river c. 400m to the E. In the graveyard (KK009-013002-) associated with the medieval church of Coolcashin (KK009-013001-) and another cross-slab (KK009-019009-) from that graveyard. A small fragment of a rectangular sandstone cross-slab (dims. 0.21m x 0.2m; T 0.045m) with a straight-sided edge. The smooth flat surface is decorated with a number of straight incised lines indicating a border and within this frame there is the start of a double-lined curve, presumably the semi-circular terminal of one arm of a Latin cross. On the flat underside there are traces of mortar where the stone has been re-used in building a stone wall, presumably the graveyard wall at Coolcashin (KK009-019002-). Harney (2011, 124) refers to similar cross-slabs from Clonmacnoise which have a suggested date of late 9th-10th century and from High Island, Co. Galway which have been dated to the 10th/11th century based on the radiocarbon dates from associated burials. The cross-slab is currently located at the parochial house in Lisdowney (see KK009-123----). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of revised upload: 20 July 2018

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.